She just wished to see the sunrise !
A menacing heavy silence looms over the diamond mountains in korea. Geumgansan has been the sacred place for dialogue and reconciliation.
However, the two gunshots about 4:50 am July 11 fired at a South Korean tourist have thrust a dagger on our hearts.
A North Korean soldier said that the woman has entered a forbidden area of the mountain. During the eleven years in the past, similar cases have been treated differently : they would arrest and eventually release the wayward tourists. Then, how come such stiffness today ?
고인의 명복을빕니다 고귀한 당신의 희생이 새로운 화해의 제단이 되기를 빕니다
(May she rest in peace ! We wish your valiant and precious sacrifice may become a new altar of reconciliation !) In South Korea, many people have knelt and prayed for Mrs. Park Wang Ja, her family who have lost their mother and spouse, and for the country that experiences a new period of troubles.
Since the partition of the country 54 years ago, Korea has seen much of human tragedy and the number of victims reached thousands in that part of planet. Here we have a brand new victim added to an already long list. Between the North and South, a new abyss of misunderstanding has been created, a deep gulf, perhaps very difficult to fill, across the entire 39th parallel… Those who come here to Diamond Mountain are usually ones who wish to see disappearance of such confrontation.
Given the sociopolitical climate that has prevailed since beginning of the year, an inter-Korean political chill was foreseeable, but a veil of ill omen fell on a day when the Government of the South has expressed her willingness to resume the roadmap of accords signed by her predecessors. In the North, we understand that things do not work as they do in the South. An enormously deep gap has been created between the two societies that evolved in separate ways. For instance, a gigantic candlelight demonstration in the South, surely would be unimaginable on the other side where no one can express a free opinion in public as in a total democracy in the name of “national interest” and for the defense of freedom of assembly. The North is a different world that no one can fathom by any standard of the South. In the entire world, there has been very little nod of approval of the reconciliation movement of the two opponents of the peninsula. (Throughout the world, there have been a few applauds of approval on the reconciliation movement of the two opponents in the peninsula. ) In the past two decades leaders and the people of the North and South have worked to formulate a common language that would allow to accept (or even overcome) the actual situation. They even succeeded to come up with an agreement on June 15 2000 and October 4 2007.
And yet today, a woman who had no intention of harming the North was killed cold blooded in a unique tourist spot located in the border of the two countries. The North is however accepting the southern tourists ; in the past 11 years two million from the South Korea have visited this place to admire exceptional scenery and to silently pray for the peace. Was it a simple accident ? This woman strayed into a forbidden area searching a better place to see the sun rise ? Is it simply that a soldier panicked at that moment on that particular day ?
Calming down of the situation will require a simple action. The incident has to be totally clarified in order to ensure that no other similar case will follow. What was going through the head of the guard soldier ? Has he simply done a military task ? Or has he had a psychological fit, an unbearable surge of rage watching a tourist from South taking a morning stroll while on the other portion of peninsula his own people suffering famine that threatens millions ?
Our open letter does not wish to pose an arrogant interference.
It is just a prayer of people overseas throughout the world, far from home and who don’t cease to think of peace in the peninsula. It is a grand time to heal the wounds of partition. We are watching at all times and with keen interest for a tenable peace in the Korean peninsula, in this crossroad of the grand history of the Northeast Asia.
The summer brings forth a fruit of maturation. Isn’t this a grand time to conceive another roadway together ?
You are welcome to respond to this article.
Translated by H Hahk Kim, MD FACS FAAP Atlanta GA USA July 19, 2008
